The Dark Side of #EDTECH & #MOOCS

Thinking about the negative implications of innovation and technology on campus. From Marc Perry at Chronicle of Higher Education:

Companies, colleges, and columnists gush about the utopian possibilities of technology. But digital life has a bleaker side, too. Over the weekend, a cross-disciplinary group of scholars convened here to focus attention on the lesser-noticed consequences of innovation.

Surveillance. Racism. Drones. Those were some of the issues discussed at the conference, which was called “The Dark Side of the Digital” and hosted by the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee’s Center for 21st Century Studies. (One speaker even flew a small drone as a visual aid; it hit the classroom ceiling and crashed.)

After a week of faculty backlash against online education, including the refusal of San Jose State University professors to teach a Harvard philosophy course offered via edX, the down sides of digital learning emerged as a hot topic, too.

In a talk dubbed “Courseware.com,” Rita Raley, an associate professor of English at the University of California at Santa Barbara, described how societal and technological changes had “reconditioned the idea of the university into that of an educational enterprise that delivers content through big platforms on demand.”

via Scholars Sound the Alert From the ‘Dark Side’ of Tech Innovation – Technology – The Chronicle of Higher Education.

One thought on “The Dark Side of #EDTECH & #MOOCS

  1. I feel like technology will always has positive and negative consequences.When used correctly technology can enhance the learning experience, and when used incorrectly technology can cheapen education down to simple memorization instead of actual learning.
    That’s why my team and I are starting http://www.adanote.com; we feel that we can harness technology for students to use in a way that enhances learning through collaboration. We are scheduled to launch in August.

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